Thursday, April 22, 2010

When we arrived, the trees were bare and the ground was muddy. Though the trees stand bleak and bare, the winter sun shines through the skeletal branches and everything seems to glow softly and subtlety, as if the world were candlelit. Tiny beads of frost catch fragments of sunlight, reflecting on the muddy brown and grey foliage scattered around, and the fog circles the scenery in the distance.We walked many times through Vale, the biggest park in Bovolone, lined with tall oaks, bordered by the irrigation river and farmlands, complete with a lake in the centre, housing cute brown ducks and majestic white swans and nearby, a sectioned off farmyard with goats, chickens and horses. There is a restaurant and bar at the entrance of the park, joined by paths leading in and around and out to the crops and orchards further and further out along the river.Then, it all went whooshing by. The skeletal trees blurred and tiny buds appeared. White blossoms sprouted, fell and coated the muddy ground. Green blades of grass shot up through the mud amongst the blossoms. Hundreds and then thousands of different shades of green leaves appeared and the longest stretch of straight path transformed into a great, green hall. The fields, ploughed and prepared with symmetric curves and patterns in the rich brown soil, boasted tiny green plants of next season’s produce.I clasped the handlebars tightly, my forefinger poised, ready to hit the brake. The ground held muddy memories and deep, dried tyre tracks cut into the road made for a bumpy ride. A quick glance to my left and I smiled, my heart skipping a beat as the image of Giuseppe and Valentino rode into view, Valentino strapped in safely to the toddler seat behind Giuseppe’s bike’s handlebars. Valentino giggled, thrilled to be on a bike ride again, and perhaps more thrilled to see mum riding beside him and Papa’.The world is green, growing and new; over and over again.The fresh morning air rushed past my face, waking me up. And to think that prior to this, I was afraid to get back on the bike.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

“…if it’s dark or light, just write…” wrote a great teacher and writer once. I’m sure he said it on more than one occasion too, as I sat amongst fellow writers and friends, scribbling notes and exchanging writing – the best school experience I have ever had… more than that… it’s up there with my best experiences. I remember when I made the decision to start the Professional Writing and Editing course. I had been in a sort of limbo, a Arts graduate working in an employment agency as front desk operations. Why? Who the hell knows. I had been working at a book store in the city prior to this, one of my dream jobs for sure, but my quest to save money, which was never accomplished, steered me away from the book store as my boss there offered me a casual, un-stable working week of three days, sometimes two. Following this, when applying for jobs at the agency, the agency offered me a job at the agency. Indeed.A great experience – I make it a point not to regret anything… though I really did loathe that job. The people were great, my boss was wonderfully bright and eccentric in an ‘elegant hippy’ way, (i.e.: “I grow organic vegetables, eat tofu and wear Prada” type). She told me a dozen colourful stories about her many adventures and interesting people in her life.I believe that we had a love-hate relationship… no, not love-hate, those words are too strong… it was specifically more a ‘like a lot/ extremely annoyed’ by me relationship. I seem to have that affect on people sometimes.She was amused by my, in her opinion, seemingly exaggerated calm composure. She would crane her neck around the doorframe of her office to glance at me, then chuckle, as I seemed to her to be extremely serene in an otherwise stressful environment.Weeks went by, months passed and my calm became her aggravation. “I don’t see a sense of urgency in you when we are really busy!” she would say through gritted teeth, flicking her manic, red, Einstein-like short hair that seemed to become more static as the stress levels rose.I would shrug and reply, meeting her gaze, “I know I don’t look it, but I am stressing on the inside.”Then her eyebrows would arch dramatically, her eyes bulging and lips disappearing as she would wheel around on her heels and breeze back to her office, hands up in silent dismissal.A few times she said something to me along the lines of, “You have a strong ability to focus on one thing, shut out everything around you and perfect what you are focusing on… unfortunately it’s not appropriate for this job,” she would sigh and then say, paced like a train slowing at the station, “You – just – can’t – multi-task.”A few more months passed and she was hovering as I stood at the fax machine, feeding client’s resume’s through. The air was leaden with annoyance, uncomfortable silence and a slither of sadness so I blurted out, “I think I better resign,” before she could say I have to let you go.“What will you do?” she asked with a soft voice and I knew we were back in like again.“I’m going to do a course in Professional Writing and Editing,” I answered. I dialed the fax number and waited, staring at the blinking light.When I looked up again, her hand was on her heart and her chin dipped down with a sort of sentimental air, “I think that would be wonderful…” she breathed, “...You have to be good to your soul.”That was eight years ago. Well, eight years this December, to be unnecessarily precise. Looking back, I did do the Professional Writing and Editing course and that makes me feel really happy. Within it, I wrote stories, poetry and met like-minded writers who I shared and work-shopped words with, attended poetry readings and performances and even formed a poetry group with three friends. We hosted weekly workshops and performance practice, competed against other Melbournians and performed on TV. When our time was coming to a close, we were throwing around ideas and formats for our own anthology of poetry, a published work to commemorate our group effort and time together. Alas, it sort of evaporated before it turned into hardcopy and that was that. Wow, that was a nice little trip down memory lane. I think it was Simon, from the above mentioned group and my then housemate, that once called me ‘Memory Lane Girl,’ when I spent an entire afternoon ploughing through mountains of semi-scrunched and crinkled papers of letters and poems, a decade old at the time. O-oh… this means I am trying to re-establish myself somehow. What? Where did that come from? I still feel dizzy, though everyone here keeps telling me that it’s really, really normal to feel dizzy here a lot in the Spring. No-one can give me the medical or scientific reason for this though. I am so used to every fact or theory being backed up with one. I miss my family.Now I am… far. Far, far away, but for the internet connection that keeps me in touch in it's distant, out of touch way. And if there wasn’t the internet - well I wouldn’t be here. What’s that, a paradox? Now I can blame my ridiculously bad, at times, memory for… erhm… dare I say ‘big word’ meanings… on the fact that I am learning Italian on a daily basis and hear nothing but Italian – bar Giuseppe’s dialogue… parallel to this I am also being corrected by Giuseppe on my English grammar lately. Scary.Ancora, mi sento male, perchè ancora sento mondo girrato…hmm come se dicè…’dizzy’….boh? E mi manchà mia familià tantissimo, e anchè miei amici perché quando Giuseppe andato lavoro, sono posso parla con Mamma Teresa, perche lei parlato con me piano piano e ho capito bene. Ma altro tutti personi parlato troppp veloce e anche più dialeto quello Italiano…. È troppo difficile per me. E anchè, quando Giuseppe lavore e Valentino dormito o vado passeggiato con Nonna, mi sento solo e più triste questi giorni. Stare solo. Voglio lavoro, voglio scrivere, voglio insegnare, voglio parlare Italiano bene, voglio sento comè donna, come mammà, comè adulta… ma non qui, e non adesso perché vivano come piccola ragazza – ancora… non lava miei vestiti, non polito nostra casa, non lavoro, non hai amici qui, non mi sembrare fare tutti decisione per mio figlio… sento inutile, e poì… sento tristè. Tempo, adesso sento veloce, troppo veloce, non ho tanto tempo, e sembra finire niente.… but at least I can write in Italian! It may be very badly written Italian… but not bad for two months of informal learning – from knowing next to nothing, bar a collection of nouns, to being able to write the above paragraph. I am sure Giuseppe will laugh, (lovingly,) when he reads my errors. And I will smile because I remember all too well when I was laughing at him… and he had warned me then.One of my best friends asked me last year, or was it the year before last? … if we are defined by our careers. She was researching, gathering information for an article. I replied ‘no’… we are defined by the people close to us. A career simply enhances who we are - but people are our core.Now I sit at this Italian keyboard and 'just write'. The street outside is busy with traffic, motorino’s, small cars and big trucks. There is blue sky and subtly warm, Spring sunshine outside, but inside the air is cold from last night’s chill.I hope I’m not misunderstood… my partner and my son are my core and they, if I may re-use a re-used phrase, they light up my life. Yes, like The Carpenters. Exactly how they sung it.But today, I am tristè… because there are several other people who are an essential part of the above mentioned core. And today I feel very, very far away from them. In addition to this, I am also feeling very un-enhanced. In a word… ‘blah’.